reducing customer-struggle-2012

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SAMPLE: Reducing Customer Struggle 2012

in association with Tealeaf SAMPLE ONLY. Please download the full report from:

http://econsultancy.com/reports/reducing-customer-struggle-2012


SAMPLE: Reducing Customer Struggle 2012

Econsultancy London

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Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2012

Published June 2012

Reducing Customer Struggle 2012 in association with Tealeaf

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and

retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © Econsultancy.com Ltd 2012

Contents

1. Executive Summary and Highlights ................................ 5

1.1. About Econsultancy ................................................................. 11

1.2. About Tealeaf ........................................................................... 11

2. Introduction by Tealeaf ................................................. 13

3. Methodology and Sample .............................................. 14

3.1. Methodology ............................................................................ 14

3.2. Respondent profiles ................................................................. 14

3.2.1. Business objectives.................................................................... 15

4. Findings ......................................................................... 16

4.1. Understanding the online customer experience ...................... 16

4.1.1. Understanding types of customer behavior ............................16

4.1.2. Value of different types of customer behavior ....................... 18

4.1.3. Difficulty collecting information about customer behavior ...19

4.1.4. Understanding the overall online customer experience ....... 20

4.1.5. Methods used for understanding the customer experience... 21

4.1.6. Effectiveness of different methods ......................................... 22

4.1.7. Responsibility for online customer experience ...................... 23

4.1.8. Barriers to understanding the online customer experience . 24

4.2. Problems or issues with the online experience ....................... 26

4.2.1. Discovering issues with the online experience ...................... 26

4.2.2. Effectiveness of different approaches to identifying problems 27

4.2.3. Most common website issues .................................................. 28

4.2.4. Most serious website issues ..................................................... 29

4.2.5. Quantifying lost revenue.......................................................... 30

4.2.6. Measuring differences in conversion rates ............................. 31

4.2.7. Prioritizing problems and issues customers face online ....... 32

4.2.8. Business initiatives to improve customer experience quality33

4.3. Use of customer channels ....................................................... 34

4.3.1. Change in investment in customer channels ......................... 34

4.3.2. Quality of customer experience for different channels ......... 35

4.3.3. Customer service as a sales channel ....................................... 36

4.4. Mobile customer experience ................................................... 37

Reducing Customer Struggle 2012 in association with Tealeaf



4.4.1. How customers interact with companies via mobile devices 37

4.4.2. Use of mobile platforms........................................................... 38

4.4.3. Proportion of traffic via mobile devices ................................. 39

4.4.4. Mobile metrics .......................................................................... 40

4.4.5. Understanding the mobile user experience ............................41

4.4.6. How customers rate the mobile user experience ................... 42

4.4.7. Most serious mobile issues ...................................................... 43

4.4.8. Responsibility for mobile customer experience ..................... 44

4.5. Integrating online with offline channels ................................. 45

4.5.1. Visibility into online customer activity ................................... 45

4.5.2. Rating of multichannel customer experience ........................ 46

4.5.3. Relationship between online teams and call centers ............ 47

4.5.4. Amount of calls resulting from a poor online customer experience ................................................................................. 48

4.5.5. Measurement of problem resolution ...................................... 49

4.5.6. Ability to escalate website problems ....................................... 50

4.5.7. Access to information about individual online experiences .. 51

5. Appendix: Respondent Profiles ..................................... 52

5.1. Business sector ........................................................................ 52

5.2. Geography ............................................................................... 53

5.3. Size of company by revenue .................................................... 54

SAMPLE: Reducing Customer Struggle 2012 Page 6



1. Executive Summary and Highlights This is the second annual Reducing Customer Struggle report, published by Econsultancy in

association with Tealeaf. The research is based on a global online survey of almost 500 business

professionals working for companies involved in e-commerce and e-business. The survey was

conducted in March and April 2012.

The report looks in detail at the extent to which companies understand the overall online customer

experience across online and offline channels and the approaches or types of technology they use to

identify and address issues.

This year’s survey also looks at how well companies understand the mobile user experience, what

mobile metrics they track, and the most common issues encountered by customers when they interact

via mobile devices.

We have identified four key trends:

1. Companies are increasingly using a range of methods to understand

the online customer experience, with a focus on understanding why

things are happening on web properties rather than just what is

happening

To improve the customer experience and reduce the issues which are damaging their brands and

limiting their revenue streams, marketers are using a broad range of methods and technology

platforms.

2. Companies focus on the mobile channel, but understanding of

experience via mobile devices is limited. Few companies are tracking

important metrics, such as the value of mobile visitors.

3. Social listening tools and associated data analysis play a growing role

in understanding the customer experience, though there has been a

4. Information about customer behavior relating to conversion rate

optimization (CRO) is the most highly valued

The vast majority (83%) of companies consider the reasons why customers abandon the shopping

cart or leave the site without converting as ‘very valuable’ information. These are also among the

areas where companies are most likely to have ‘limited understanding’ or ‘no understanding’.

SAMPLE ONLY. Please download the full report from:






1.1. About Econsultancy Econsultancy is a global independent community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and e-commerce, and used by over 400,000 internet professionals every month.

Our hub has 120,000+ members worldwide from clients, agencies and suppliers alike with over 90% member retention rate. We help our members build their internal capabilities via a combination of research reports and how-to guides, training and development, consultancy, face-to-face conferences, forums and professional networking.

For the last ten years, our resources have helped members learn, make better decisions, build business cases, find the best suppliers, accelerate their careers and lead the way in best practice and innovation.

Econsultancy has offices in London, New York and Dubai and we are a leading provider of digital marketing training and consultancy. We are providing consultancy and custom training in the Middle East, and extensively across Europe and Asia. We trained over 5,000 marketers and ran over 200 public training courses in 2011.

Join Econsultancy today to learn what’s happening in digital marketing – and what works.

Call us to find out more on +44 (0)20 7269 1450 (London) or +1 212 699 3626 (New York). You can

also contact us online.

1.2. About Tealeaf Tealeaf provides online customer experience management solutions and is the unchallenged leader in

customer behavior analysis. Tealeaf’s CEM solutions include both a customer behavior analysis suite

and customer service optimization suite.

For organizations that are making customer experience a top priority, these solutions provide

unprecedented enterprise-wide visibility into every visitor’s unique online interactions for ongoing

analysis and web site optimization. Online executive stakeholders from e-business and IT to customer

service and compliance are leveraging Tealeaf to build a customer experience management

competency across the organization.

Founded in 1999, Tealeaf is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and is privately held. For

more information, visit www.tealeaf.com.



http://econsultancy.com/

http://econsultancy.com/join

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Other related Econsultancy reports

Multichannel Customer Experience Report

http://econsultancy.com/reports/multichannel-customer-experience-report

User Experience Buyer’s Guide

http://econsultancy.com/reports/user-experience-buyers-guide

Mobile Websites and Apps Optimization Best Practice Guide

http://econsultancy.com/reports/mobile-websites-and-apps-optimization-best-practice-guide

Customer Engagement Report

http://econsultancy.com/reports/customer-engagement-report

JUMP - Engage presentations

http://econsultancy.com/reports/jump-engage-presentations

Customer Experience & Engagement Statistics

http://econsultancy.com/reports/customer-experience-statistics



http://econsultancy.com/reports/multichannel-customer-experience-report

http://econsultancy.com/reports/user-experience-buyers-guide

http://econsultancy.com/reports/mobile-websites-and-apps-optimization-best-practice-guide

http://econsultancy.com/reports/customer-engagement-report

http://econsultancy.com/reports/jump-engage-presentations

http://econsultancy.com/reports/customer-experience-statistics





2. Introduction by Tealeaf We live in interesting times. Ten years ago, much of what we now call e-business would have felt like

science fiction. It was a time when phones were still mainly used for making phone calls and when a

color screen was still seen as ‘cutting edge’. The concept of ‘tablet computing’ was (for geeks) an idea

from Microsoft that had been and gone and (for everyone else) something out of Star Trek.

We live in interesting times. It is precisely because technology moves in such strange and varied ways

that we need now, more than ever, to stay not just abreast, but ahead of online consumer behavior.

And it is for this very reason that, 12 months ago, we commissioned the very first Reducing Customer

Struggle Report from Econsultancy. The findings were as dramatic as they were surprising and so,

when it came to re-running the study for a second year, we couldn’t pass up the chance to drill down

into how things have or haven’t changed in just one year – itself a life-time in technology.

If there is one area that we have decided to really enlarge in this iteration of the study, it is the focus

on mobile. As mentioned above, the mobile revolution has taken us all by surprise. And, for those of

us that work in the customer experience space, it is not so much the rapid proliferation of mobile sites

and apps that has made us stand up and take note, but the consumer reaction to it.

Time and time again we hear from the companies that we work with that customer expectations on

mobile devices are higher than ever. Not only do customers now expect you to have a fully functional

mobile specific website as well as mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, they’ll increasingly expect

the experience delivered by all of these to be second to none.

Brands just aren’t getting a second chance when it comes to mobile. Customers expect the experience

to be great the first time. It is now a fundamental business issue if that experience does not meet

these sky-high expectations. That doesn’t just affect your mobile strategy, but your entire approach to

digital and offline as well.

It’s a challenge and an opportunity for companies and it is this challenge and opportunity that we

seek to explore and examine throughout this study. The results are as dramatic and as surprising as

they were first time round.

We live in interesting times. Hopefully this report will help guide you through the ever-changing

digital world in which we live and help you put together a customer experience strategy to succeed.

Geoff Galat

VP, Worldwide Marketing, Tealeaf







3. Methodology and Sample

3.1. Methodology The Reducing Customer Struggle report is based on an international online survey of almost 500

business professionals working for companies involved in e-commerce and e-business. The survey

was live during March and April 2012.

Econsultancy promoted the survey to its community of digital marketers and e-commerce

professionals, offering a complimentary copy of this report as the incentive for taking part. Tealeaf,

the research sponsor, also promoted the survey to its contacts.

If you have any questions about the research and methodology, please email Linus Gregoriadis at

Econsultancy ([email protected]).

3.2. Respondent profiles A total of 477 respondents who are employees at an e-commerce or e-business company took part in the survey. The best represented countries were the UK (57%) and the US (21%). For a more detailed profiling of respondents, see Section 5.

The chart below shows that survey respondents are typically senior within a business, with around a

third classifying themselves either as heads or VPs of digital / e-commerce (20%) or business owners

/ C-level executives / CMOs (14%). Over a quarter of respondents are marketing managers

responsible either for multiple channels (22%) or for a single channel (7%).

Figure 1: Which best describes your level or position within the company?

Respondents: 449

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3.2.1. Business objectives

As seen in Figure 6, selling more products or services online is the main business objective, relevant

for the vast majority of respondents (88%). The next most cited objectives are improving customer

satisfaction / Net Promoter Score (63%), generating more leads online (53%) and increasing online

self-service (52%).

Figure 2: Which of the following business objectives are relevant for your business?

Respondents: 440







4. Findings

4.1. Understanding the online customer experience

4.1.1. Understanding types of customer behavior

In this year’s research, we have again sought to understand in more detail how well companies

understand different types of customer behavior along various stages of the sales funnel (awareness,

consideration and purchase). This year we have also analyzed how valuable that data is (Section

4.1.2), and how difficult it is to collect it (Section 4.1.3).

Figure 3: Sales funnel stages

From a range of types of customer behavior, respondents are most likely to say that they have a ‘good understanding’ of how people become aware of their brand or website (71%) or where people come

from before visiting their website (63%) [Figure 8].







4.2. Problems or issues with the online experience

4.2.1. Discovering issues with the online experience

As was the case last year, around three-quarters (78%) of respondents say they normally discover

problems or issues with the online customer experience through customer emails and calls to

customer service teams.

Figure 4: How does your organization normally discover problems or issues with the

online experience?

Respondents 2012: 350

Respondents 2011: 387







4.3. Use of customer channels

4.3.1. Change in investment in customer channels

Just over three-quarters (77%) of companies surveyed plan to increase investment in mobile channels

in 2012 and a similar proportion of respondents (74%) say they’ll invest more in online channels.

Offline channels such as stores / shops / branches represent a high priority over the coming months

for a significantly lower proportion of companies, with more than half of respondents saying they

either plan to decrease (12%) or maintain the level of investment in these channels.







4.4. Mobile customer experience

4.4.1. How customers interact with companies via mobile devices

According to more than half (58%) of companies surveyed, their customers typically research

products on mobile devices for later purchase online.

There is widespread acknowledgement that mobile is a crucial touch point in customer journeys, with

almost half (43%) of companies saying their customers purchase products directly using a mobile

device and a similar proportion (41%) reporting that customers research products for later purchase

offline.







4.5. Integrating online with offline channels

4.5.1. Visibility into online customer activity

As Figure 35 shows, the proportion of companies saying that the offline parts of their business have

very good visibility into individual customer activity and experience has increased in the last 12

months, from 6% in 2011 to 9% this year although the overall picture is similar to last year.

For the majority of companies surveyed (61%), the offline parts of their business have little or no

visibility of how individual customers engage with their websites.







5. Appendix: Respondent Profiles

5.1. Business sector Respondents work across a wide range of business sectors. As seen in the chart below, over a quarter

of respondents (27%) work in the retail or mail order sector, while 12% work in financial services.

Some 10% of respondents work in the travel sector and 8% work in publishing. A fifth of respondents specify ‘other’ as their sector. ‘Other’ in this context includes IT, telecommunications and real estate.

Figure 5: In which business sector is your organization or division?

Respondents: 303







5.2. Geography The majority of respondents (over half – 57%) are based in the UK, while around a fifth (21%) are US-

based. Some 10% are based in Europe (outside UK) and 7% are based in Asia Pacific.

Figure 6: In which country / region are you located?

Respondents: 450







5.3. Size of company by revenue The chart below shows the annual revenue of company respondents, showing that US respondents are weighted towards larger organizations.

Almost two thirds of respondents based in the US (63%) work for companies with annual revenues of more than $100 million, compared to 31% of UK respondents working for brands with a turnover in excess of £100 million.

Figure 7: Approximately how much revenue did your company generate in revenue

in 2011?

Respondents: 300


